I don't feel like i'm playing an mmo...and I know why

[Muzy]

Yes. I'd pay my sub again if they reverted the black shroud.

Yeah, sure, lets go back to the old The Black Shroud is a series of tubes and takes up a lot more space on the map than there actually is to explore, it was basically the sylph lands with a smaller tileset and a lot more tunnels. Ugh, no thank you.

[Dannythm]

Yeah, sure, lets go back to the old The Black Shroud is a series of tubes and takes up a lot more space on the map than there actually is to explore, it was basically the sylph lands with a smaller tileset and a lot more tunnels. Ugh, no thank you.

You have the game you want, I don't, so I guess you win.

[Norna]

snip

OMG! Miqo'tail isn't glued to mount in awkward U-shape, what is this witchery?! (For that matter, I've seen robes with rope belts in 1.0 vids. Rope. Belts. Witchcraft, I tell you!)

That video has a greater sense of scale of Twelveswood than playing ARR has, which is bad (usually when I watch vids and then play the game, it's the other way around).

While I get that they didn't want pasta copynara, they went too far in the other direction, on top of the instancing, which shrinks the feeling of an already claustrophobic world. It's not bad to have a few areas (such as woods, desert dunes, fields and snowscapes) where there is little variety. Think of most great paintings out there. Sure, the interesting bits dominate, but they have relaxed areas for the eyes to turn to. I mean, even Michelangelo's The Last Judgement (very busy painting) have all those fields of plain blue.

[jomoru]

Its good to know something like Skyrim would make you feel like you're playing an MMo...

[Psychosamm]

I don't see why people are saying a world like skyrim would make it less like a MMO, if anything it enhances the feeling. It adds more adventure and danger, when theres hundreds of people in every place you go to it looses its sense of adventure, and that is one of the things MMOs are about. You would still have your populated areas (ex: revenants toll), but having a large seamless world would be the icing on top. I don't see how anyone could say if they didn't see anyone else in their immediate location that it "kills the mmo feeling". People are too focused on the MMO part that they forget the RPG, you need both, and the latter is what is lacking in FFXIV most in my opinion.

[LiadansWhisper]

I would also like for the zones to be much bigger. I am really happy, though, that the zone areas we do have are so pretty and unique and non-laggy. But I admit that I miss climbing on mountains!

[Moontide]

I'd give the first post more thumbs up if I could. This is exactly what I was feeling during the first few weeks already. The fact that progression is extra-linear in ARR only makes the feeling even worse. You're down to a very narrow path to tread, and once the story is over the only thing left seems to be gear grind.

[Enkidoh]

The irony is, if you compare the new maps to the original 1.0 maps based on region, and eliminate the zonelines, the zones are actually pretty much the same size as they were in 1.0, there is just a zone line between sections now. The main zone that has been changed the most (not including the snowbound Coerthas or Mor Dhona missing it's southern half) is the Black Shroud, and that was basically just one long passageway twisted back on itself constantly in 1.0 with the odd clearing for good measure. But by comparing maps it's still pretty much the same size. The zone lines just eliminate that synthetic appearance of 'seamlessness' that actually wasn't.

[pepero]

I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this but WoW did it right with the open world concept, There are 0 boundaries to where you can go, oh you fell off a cliff? Too bad you're dead. I feel like SE is holding my hand the entire game with this whole borders and invisible walls bs. What if I want to run off that cliff, that's my choice who are you to restrict that from me. It makes me feel as if SE's programmers were incompetent and couldn't pull off what Blizzard did with WoW.

[Darlan_Ashwood]

The thing is, when an MMO comes out with all these classic MMO features ( gigantic open world, open pvp, super grindy leveling system) people complain about it and it flops. I think part of the reason they went the small map rout is because it helps with optimization, and they are catering to the masses ( they really cant afford any risky mistakes with this game). I personally think this game feels quite MMO like, as far as what MMOs have become.